Seventeenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Today designing in architecture, understood in the broadest sense of the term, cannot ignore the end-of-life aspects of an object, material, or building: it is necessary to consider how to reuse or recycle what is used during construction in order to reduce the consumption of raw materials and make the construction chain more sustainable. In this context, several companies are starting to work on obtaining environmental declarations for their products and are beginning to develop products that can be assembled with dry construction systems, for an easier reuse, or that can be easily disassembled by type of material, to guarantee an easier recycling. This contribution wants to start from this desire for sustainable design to study how, in the field of metal cladding, these needs are linked to the market trends that can be seen in the projects realised today and which are presented in architectural magazines. These façade solutions, in fact, are well suited both for a subsequent reuse of the material at the end of their life and for their recycling. Therefore, it is necessary to understand how these coatings can be used, to encourage their application even in areas of use where they are not currently present.